"The decision on the Quota issue is final" - says Mr.Arjun Singh, in an interview with Mr.Karan Thapar. Read on...

I've removed the copy of the entire post and placed the link to the page here.

My questions to those who've read it and come back :)

Why the fuck did the guy come in for the interview when he had this "I cannot comment on this" disclaimer. Irrititates me to the core - pretty much like that Dennis guy sitting silently through, of all things, a media interview which was supposed to explain why Sachin and some others were punishd during a test match in SA.

Why come only, if u have nothing to say??? He shud better go hide ur face behind the doors of the ministry :)

Yesterday, I received a mail from Honeywell Performance and Arts club (Wings) that Jyotsna Temkar, an ace choreographer and a trilingual actor will be the instructor for Jazz classes at Honeywell. Carrying a strong reputation on dance floors under my belt, I never felt the need to learn dance. But...Jazz?! I assumed that Jazz should be yet another name for doing excerises while hearing some western music?! Now, I started googling...

World War I had ended and a social revolution was under way! Customs and values of previous generations were rejected. Life was to be lived and enjoyed to the fullest. This was the era of the "lost generation", and the "flapper" with her rolled stockings, short skirts, and straight up-and-down look. They scandalized their elders in the cabarets, night clubs, and speakeasies that replaced the ballrooms of pre-war days. Dancing became more informal - close embraces and frequent changes of partners were now socially acceptable.

Only one kind of music suited this generation - jazz, the vehicle for dancing the fox-trot, shimmy, rag, Charleston, black bottom, and various other steps of the period. Jazz originated at the close of the nineteenth century in the seamy dance halls and brothels of the South and Midwest where the word Jazz commonly referred to sexual intercourse. Southern blacks, delivered from slavery a few decades before, started playing European music with Afro modifications.

The birthplace of jazz has many origins: New Orleans, St. Louis, Memphis and Kansas City are just a few. But New Orleans was and still remains an important jazz center. The ethnic rainbow of people who gravitated to the bars and brothels were a major factor in the development of jazz. The city had been under Spanish and French rule prior to the Louisiana purchase. By 1900, it was a blend of Spanish, French, English, German, Italian, Slavic and countless blacks originally brought in as slaves.

The first jazz bands contained a "rhythm section" consisting of a string bass, drums, and a guitar or banjo, and a "melodic section" with one or two cornets, a trombone, a clarinet, and sometimes even a violin. Years later, jazz was taken over by large orchestras; a "society jazz band" contained fifteen or more musicians. Today, there is a renewed interest in the "big band" era, even though the music has very little to do with real jazz.

True jazz is characterized by certain essential features. The first is a tendency to stress the weak beats of the bar (2nd and 4th) in contrast to traditional music which stressed the first and third beats. The second feature is syncopation through an extensive repetition of short and strongly rhythmic phrases or "riffs". The third feature of jazz is swing (regular but subtle pulsation which animates 4/4 time). The swing must be present in every good jazz performance.

For quite a few months, I am trading MFs virtually using free portfolio trackers. I find it very useful and there are such portfolio trackers for trading stocks/shares as well.

Many of us are still in the learning curve in our venture to become a connoisseur of stock market trading?!! :-) We still have lots of questions like whats the best time to sell and buy funds?! Guess, it comes with experience and lot of market study. These portfolio trackers can be used to trade funds ie. u could buy and sell funds virtually; it automatically gets the NAV of the particular fund and displays the current loss/gain. The experience u gain out of this is as close as trading with DP accounts.

I am sure most of you guys would be already using such portfolio trackers?! Anyway, for others it may prove useful.

via .Afterall karthick's idea wasn't that bad. Offering a book that is in sub-100 category doesn't harm anyone. Already people are tapping this idea.Dai kicha. Its your turn to continue the story. Post it asap.

Great to hear such stories of yethir neechal. Even my relative Dr.Kanaga (I don't know her full name) was the first women neuro surgeon of asia. A highly pious lady, she didn't marry anyone. No wonder, her favourite god is Hanuman. She is the official neuro surgeon of thirupathi (the title might not be exact but it is something close to that).

Machis, I took pains to format this da. Cos a simple copy paste from MSWORD creates problems in the blog. So, kindly give atleast a glance.First, you must understand exactly why it is necessary to be using this idea of relocatability. The simplest explanation is that it is necessary. The technical explanation is as follows: Computers have a bank of memory in which to store large numbers of programs and data. Traditionally, computer memory indexing started at 0 and ran to 655360 (640 KiloBytes). This of course, isn't the first block of memory to be used in a computer, there were others, but this is the earliest example that makes this easier to understand. Modern computers now have much larger blocks of memory, ranging all the way from 0 to somewhere in the vicinity of a GigaByte.

When programs are loaded into this block of memory, there is no telling exactly where the code will go. It's unlikely that it'll get placed at location 0 and more likely that it will end up somewhere near the top of middle depending on the system being used. Because of this uncertainty there is no way we can determine where our storage space, functions within our code, or any other data we might wish to reference. How do we solve this problem you might ask? The answer is relocatable modules.

A relocatable module is one in which every reference to locations within a module are tagged so that they may be updated with the new address once loaded into memory. Before we get into the actual compiler, linker, and loader examples, let's take a quick peek at something easier.

Imagine a simple computer with some RAM (it doesn't matter how much). This computer will only run ONE program. It starts executing at address 0 and stops when it runs out of code. Here's a quick example in pseudo assembly (based loosely on 8086 code using MASM) with roughly corresponding C functions listed next to it.

Hopefully this makes some sense. Really, what you have is a variable X created in memory and then a function that utilizes this space to do some elementary calculations. Now, in order to see how this code is run, we'll need to compile it. To do that, we need to compile each line. Rather than use OPCODES, we'll just leave the words the way they are for readability. Before I list the compiled code, here's a short run down on the notation: Anything in italics is a constant value and anything in bold is a memory address that refers to some position in memory. You must also remember that this code will start running at address 0.

ADDRESS VALUE

0 MOV1 62 13 ADD4 65 206 STORAGE FOR X

Notice the way the destinations of the MOV and ADD operations are all changed to a memory address of 6. The reason for this is that the data segment for this particular program is appended to the end of the code (as shown in the example). Compilers are nice to the human world by making all this machine code a layer of the computer that we shouldn't have to deal with. Because computers operate on spaces in memory everything it is necessary for the program to eventually be broken down into something nearly unreadable so that all operations are performed on a particular piece of memory.

Next, we'll look at what happens when we take our same program and expand it to a computer that can have more than one process in memory at a time. When we allow this to happen, we now must find a way to deal with the fact that we are no longer at location zero. In order to remove this burden from the programmer, a loader was invented. A loader is nothing more than a program that takes a compiled and linked (more on that in a minute) program and replaces all the references to memory with their new address. Because each executable would like to run at position 0 of the memory, it uses that number as its base. This has a convenient benefit for the loader. It can now just find a block of memory and then add the starting space to each of the relocatable addresses inside the code. Basically all the individual memory addresses we used before become an offset from the new base address that the program is placed into. Here's a new table that starts memory at position 810 instead of 0:

As you can tell by looking at the table, the following formula holds true: New Address = Base Address + Offset. And of course the offset is given as the original address in our source file. Now things are going to get a little more complicated. We're going to introduce the idea of Modularization, or breaking your code into smaller pieces, such as functions, or files.

In this part we're going to use the examples given in the course pack and add a few tables that were left out. For simplicity, every operation takes only 1 operand, LOAD will move data from a memory address into a register (the AX or accumulator register) and the STORE operation will move data from the AX register into the given memory space. When using 'real' assembly language, the same thing takes place except that the lengths are different sizes and are not fixed at one.

In the above example the first three lines are to define what type of data is present in the module. In module 1 it is apparent that the symbol MAIN (which represents a function) and the variable Y are both stored INTERNALLY, and are marked as GLOBAL so that other modules may use them. Line 2 indicates that the function S1 is an external function and should be present in another module (most likely module 2). And the last and final line starts that the variable X is an internal variable and is not to be used by other function (this the lack of the GLOBAL keyword). The numbers to the right of the instructions indicate the offset at which each of these instructions happen. Using this information, we can build the following symbol table:

This table represents all the symbols (or non-keywords) inside the file, the address at which they can be found inside the file, the address at where they are referenced externally, and where the variable or function was defined. The function S1 is defined outside of the current file, and because the compiler doesn't actually know where the external function is, we leave this part of the symbol table blank for now.

If we build an address table like we did in the first section, we can see where all the data is in relation to the current file (remember that files start at 0 and continue on till they run out of code). For module 1, here's what a sample object module would look like:

Now we need to look at how the two object modules are put together to make one relocatable executable file. This extremely important task is accomplished by the linker. Remember the ?? we had in our tables? These unknown items are what the linker is supposed to resolve. It takes 2 (or more) module files, placing the MAIN function at the beginning of the program (at position 0), and then making sure all references are resolved and the relocatable addresses (the ones in bold) are updated to their new positions. When we perform the link operation, we essentially take both object modules and link them together into one file. This is done almost in a copy and paste operation with a few touchups to make sure the addressing is corrected. To make it easier to read, we will list the new module table by addresses in sequence of 2 (remember that our simple machine takes a 1 byte instruction followed by a 1 byte operand).

The first thing you might notice upon looking at the table are the numbers listed in red. These are the numbers that linker had to determine or change in order to link the file into an output module. The first two numbers are left along because the addresses 6 and 7 are still in the same place as when the file was originally created. However, the 8 listed for the jump statement was previously unknown. The linker determined its value by scanning through the symbol tables and the completed object module to find its new addresses. The load instruction's operand was previously unknown as well. It was determined in the same manner that the destination for the jump was. And lastly, the STORE command was previously using the value of 7. If this value were left at that, it is clear from the table that it would be writing into the storage for variable Y rather than for Z, which is what the program called for.

The last thing to cover is the loader. It's function is exactly the same as in our first example, so I'll let you refer there for the technical workings of it. For the course pack examples, we'll use a starting address of 140 in memory and load our compiled and linked program into memory to be executed. Remember that the values in our last object table are nothing more than the offsets added to our base address. Here's what the resulting table will look like:

The most awaited movie of this year, if not this century, is about to release tomorrow in India. There were few speculations that the Indian government might temporarily hold up the release of the movie - "Da Vinci Code" after receiving complaints from the Catholic groups, even though the national censor board had already cleared the film. But atlast, it had crossed the last hurdle; the Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Das Munsi will also not intervene in the release of the movie.

Seems like the majority of the Catholics around the globe cannot digest the innovated theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. I think, everyone have their freedom to express their thoughts. So, there is nothing wrong in the novel and in it's video form. Extending the same argument, there is nothing wrong if someone comes up with his comments against the film?! But, that should be just another reivew or statement. These comments shouldn't be given more weightage and ban the film. If someone feels that the theme of the film is inappropriate then let them not watch the movie?! In that way, the whole issue was handled properly by the Indian ministry and the sensor board. So, now the movie will be shown in India, with A-Certification and lingering disclaimers.

But, anyway it's hard to envisage why the best selling novel wasn't banned so far but heavy protests were already made against the video form of the same novel, even before the release of the movie?! Though, one might argue that the movies have a wider reach than the books!!

Now the funny part...Ian McKellen, who plays Leigh Teabing in The Da Vinci Code, sought to make light of the controversy. "I'm very happy to believe that Jesus was married. I know the Catholic Church has problems with gay people and I thought this would be absolute proof that Jesus was not gay," he said. :-)

Kaalai is dead.Long live the Karadi...Sensex has gone beserk. Is the party over? Are there some good stocks to pick now? How do you conclude whether a stock is overvalued or not? What on earth is the intrinsic value of a stock?All these and a million more questions.... What would you guys do if you had money in the market now?

I jus used to have such discussions with my folks from college. I thought some just weren't comfortable with the thought that they needed an MBA education to get the specifics of business. They were always being Mr.Einstein - asking the WHY and the HOW of the issue!!! While i was trying to give them answers, i happened to get this mail from a senior of mine, who has just finished his MBA (or PGDBM) from IIM Indore. He's presently with a company named ATOS Origin.

I haven't really worked much for this post, apart from cutting the "hi - how r u" kinda stuff, re arranging the contents, adding up a few links etc. So all the contents are purely from my senior. This makes some interesting reading though - especially for those confused ones (who like to be better called as ASPIRANTS). For the others, it might sound like excerpts from a Mgmt course book :)so - here we go...

### Mail Begins Here ###

Let us come to your question of what MBA guys can do in the IT industry. There are 4 broad areas where MBA grads can get into (1) project mgmt (2) business analysis (3) business development (4) consultancy

Nobody would want to get into Project management (post MBA i.e.). Except for the last-in-the-batch kinda guys. This is what a BE with probably 10 - 15 yrs (depending upon the company and the person) of experience gets to do.

Business analysis is not really related to IT per se. It is abt finding how business events can affect company. Things like recent government changes, IT innovations and any other stuff which might throw up issues or new project ventures will be followed by these guys. Almost 40% of the MBA guys end up here.

Business Development is the hot cake. It is abt modeling outsourcing contracts, interacting with customers, giving presentations, bidding etc - basically planning for and getting business. Very few guys land up here (since there are very less openings).

We can now categorize Consultancy into 2 sub sections:Technical consultancy (like SAP etc) - Some guys do go to such profiles. But frankly, this is not for MBA students. You can reach here without MBA, albeit slower. You need to understand coding et al.

Functional consultancy (retail, telecom, manufacturing etc) is quite good, and a good many land up here. You need to have a technical bent of mind, but not essentially coding experience.

### Mail Ends Here ###

guess that pretty much sums up what's what.How does that sound guys?!?! Anything interesting???

If this is what u wanna do in life, coz i think it is pretty much difficult to change domains after ur Masters and it is all the more difficult to change ur job profile after ur first job, go get that MBA for urself and specialize in IT (or sit for IT company interviews).

I was not a brilliant guy at studies; Neither cool at playing games. My only association with sports was that I watch in Tv, every cricket match played on earth. I always sat on the first bench throught out my school and college, not because I was studious, just that people in my class had better growth hormones. I never had any nick names, don't know why my friends felt comfortable in calling me as Anand. I cleared 12th standard chemistry paper only in my 3rd attempt. I got an engineering seat in a private engineering college, only because my father was generous enough to gift a quarter of his life time savings on the donation. I had lot of girl friends throgh out my college life; Oflate I reailized that girls just used me as a spy to gather information about their boy friends. When I shared my experiences with my friends they always felt it as uninteresting as watching an Australia-Bangladesh test match. I managed to finish my BE degree with an agreegate of 59%. Again, I was unlucky to miss first class by a whisker.

Already six months were gone since I finished my degree. I never crossed the written test in any of my attempts to get a job. I was the only guy in my friend's circle who still depended on his father's pension for the daily food. Running out of gas, I joined a consultancy firm that gave training in software testing, only because the advertisement read - 100% placement for the students who studied courses in their firm. But, I knew that everything in the world has an exception.

I entered into a small training hall to attend the first day of my course on a monday evening at Jayanagar. I sat in my customoray first row to find a girl with a near perfect figure, fair skin under a short red T-shirt, American accent in her voice, inshort she is a Bangalore cutie in every right. Next day, she wore an amusing T-shirt with three buttons - Ctrl-Alt-Del printed at locations that guys would want to watch forever! Below those keys, was the caption - "Press ctrl-Alt-Del to enter into the system". I was so focused at what I am doing that I read the caption a bit aloud and every one in the class started laughing at me. The book that she carried slipped from her hand only to give me a chance to speak to her. I opened my mouth to say - "Sorry", which I then realized that it is the best starter when you don't know what to speak. she smiled and introduced herself as Swetha and at the end of the class we both came out to have a cheese Sandwich in Cooljoint. I began to like her company and started flirting with her in the evenings regularly [hmmm.. I am not sure if my converstions with her were MANly enough to call as flirting.] Days went by and we became thick friends.

Today was the last day of the course and we had an interview for a software company that evening. After a week of combined study with Swetha, I felt confident about myself. The interview went on for 45 mins. Thou I wasn't able to answer few questions, I felt that my performance was better than my revious interviews.

I called Swetha at 11 PM that night. We both were discussing about our performances that night.

I told her, "How nice it would be if we both get placed in the same company."

Swetha: Hmmm...Hope atleast one of us get placed.

Me: I would have made a big mistake if you were my classmate in my college.

Swetha: What mistake?

Me: I like you very much that I would have fallen in love.

Swetha: Do you like me very much?

Me: A lot... You know, there are lots of girls in Bangalore who are very cute. Comparing them, you are not that beautiful. But, still I don't know why I like you very much.

Swetha: Really...

Me: What do you think about me?

Swetha: You are a good friend. Hmmm...a very good friend.

Me: Then...

Swetha: Then?!

[swetha gets a call in her landline and talks with some one else.]

Swetha: Hey...my friend Rajini told that the results are out. Five of us got placed...Rajani, Swetha, Arthi, Ramya and Anand. Tomorrow we will get the offer letters.

Me: Wow...Both of us got placed in the same company. I couldn't ask for more.

Swetha: Yeah. I am very happy for you. I will call you after 10 minutes. I will inform my father and mother about this news.

[The clock strikes 12. Swetha called me back.]

Swetha: Hi...still awake?

Me: Yeah. I cannot sleep. I am so lucky to get into a big MNC and that too with a friend like you

Swetha: Me too. But, don't call me a friend.

Me: Oh no. Why?

Swetha: Is that the way guys call their girlfriend?

Me: what?

Swetha: I said, I love you......Good night...bye.

[Call ended]

I couldn't imagine what is happening to my life. I now realized that I am no more the old "Fit for nothing" guy. I felt that my whole life had changed just in 5 mins. I could hear someone singing "Verti kodi kattu..." song for me. First I got a job, and then a life companion. I thought her friendship changed me a lot, it instilled self confidence in me. I came to know why people call, "Behind every successful man there is a woman".

After spending a pleasant night full of dreams, I met Swetha in front of the IT Park gate. We both went to the reception, waited there for the HR to come and give us the offer letters. After sometime a young lady came there (she had every attribute of a HR in her) read the names, first Rajani R, Arthi S, Ramya K, Swetha N and finally... Anand S. I expected a big surprise but it turned out to be a big shock. For the first time in my life, I blamed my grandmother for naming my father as Thangavelu. Yes, I am not Anand.S, someone who was 6 feet tall came hurrying from the gate to get the offer letter. Swetha came close to me and introduced the guy who snatched my offer letter. She called him as her boy friend and told me that they will get married soon. Second shock... I was about to ask her why she proposed me today morining in phone; But, I got the answer on seeing the first line in her offer letter, which read "April 1, 2006"... I am not so dumb to realize that I was fooled twice today. ''

Hmmm... again I missed my girl and my offer letter only by a whisker ('T' is only a tad away from 'S' ?!!).

Plz Note:

1) This is just the part I of the story.

2) The next part will be the continuation of the story and will be written by some other guy.

Tennis has been my favourite sport right from the moment i started i understanding it. For reasons unknown to me, i liked monica seles at the first instance i watched her which means that i have to hate graf when the two met. Early days, I used to get angry at the lines lady when she shouted. My father would explain patiently that it gives points to monica. Tennis came to my life when Becker, Edberg were like present day Tendulkar. Probably the next 10 years or so, I followed every tournament i could watch. I could say top 20 players in both genders. Not to mention all the titbits about the players (Thanks to DD and world tel). Then came my college life. BS with it. Thanks to some idiots who didn't allow anything to be seen in english, my association with tennis was then narrowed down to only newspaper. i even missed the epic final b/w Goran Ivanisevic and Patrick Rafter. i had seen all his three lost finals but didn't see the winning one. Now, this f**king CAS is taking its toll on me. In the mean time, tennis lost its charisma as there were no real star after Agassi and Sampras started to fade out. There were many boy-wonders but never a champion. But, then these guys showed up Nadal and Federer. Just perfect setting any tennis fan would ask for. A demi-god - stylish backhand - devastating inside out forehand - excellent serve - great volleying - master in grass and hardcourt - Roger Federer. A rebel - big biceps - big top spin forehand - great court coverage - a clay court specialist - Raefal Nadal. Federer my current god was not like my previous god sampras, he can win in clay too. I expect him to win the french open. He has lost 5 of 6 matches to Nadal. Most of them in clay. Believe me Federer would crush Nadal in grass (any average grass court player can crush Nadal in grass.) This rivalry is healthy for tennis. for non-believers this is what happened in Rome Masters final.

While Kart keeps the Novel thingy running, I'll bring this up and try to keep it running. As is obvious, the idea here to bring up a foto blog and keep it running.

I dunno how many of us are fotography enthusiasts. I am one - which explains why I spent a fortune on that camera of mine. Though I have never embarked on a mission specifically for fotography (which I intend to do in the near future), I try to use the limited opportunities I get (read: Company outings, Out of town marriages) and improve my skills behind the camera.

As a result, I really have some good ones to show to the world. I'm here to ask how many of us share this interest. If we have a bunch of ppl, we can start up this fotoblog - which will specifically deal with the photos taken of and by the ppl of the TechECE group.

If you are interested, jus say an "Aye". I'll keep track of the ayes and then go about things.

The thing is, this has been on my plans for quite some time now. So, by end of July - I was planning to start one on my own. Jus wanted to widen the scope of the thing if I am able to get like minded ppl.

Mama...how abt writing a novel, with each one of us writing a section of 50 pages (ofcourse after framing the story and partioning it)...

We could call it as 'Gang of 6' (Prad, sunil, iday, kitcha, ram and kart)?!We could pull in other guys who are interested.

One big disadv is that each one of us have a different style of writing, so each section will be in a different style. May be this could work in our adv... Hmmm...let us not think abt publishing it now but we could try writing it for our own fun?!!

We could chose a theme something in the likes of "Five point someone"... means abt college life or something which is common to us?! We could write it in Virumandi style ie., each section could be a narration by a different character?!

"A dry Martini, stirred not shaken". The bartender noted the order with a "You poor guy!" smile. I returned him an "I know." smile. Yet another weekend. Correction. Yet another weekend alone. You see, yours truly isn't exactly Mr.Hitch, the date doctor. The usual "date" that I go out on is to haunt movie theaters in the neighbourhood with my friend Sundar. This particular weekend, he is busy with some work, so I decided "Hey! Why not try hanging out at some of those "in" places like the Athena bar?". Maybe, just maybe I could meet some girls and who knows I what could happen next. So far I hadn't been very successful, I could not see any single girls in the bar.

Here I was lost in my own day dreams and just as my drink arrived, I noticed that the bar stool next to me was occupied by a guy. Clean shaven, looking slick with his hair combed back, a bunny pink shirt and a cool earring, he looked just a touch effeminate. Mr.Pink Shirt smiled at me. Being a guy brought up by parents who force feed you with humility and politeness along with Horlicks, I returned his smile."Are you alone?", he asked.

Hmm...

"Yes", I replied cautiously, alarm bells ringing in my brain, as I tried to figure out which ear had the earring. It was the left ear and not the right one alright. I relaxed."So, do you hang out here frequently?", he asked oblivious to my thoughts."Not really", I replied. "Me neither... Oh! and by the way... I am Krish", he said extending his hand. I shook his hand introducing myself.He said, "I couldn't help noticing, that you look quite bored. Me and my college buddies, Jesse and Mo are having a reunion of sorts after a long time. I am waiting for them, would you care to join us?".

Jesse? My hopes soared. May be this evening was not lost after all, I could atleast get to meet one girl. "Sure. I don't have any other appointments either. So tell me more about yourself...", I said. "Who me?", asked Krish, "well I work in India... I am into the dairy farm business. I just love dairy products. Especially butter".

"And what does she do?", I enquired, hoping I didn't sound too eager.

"Who?".

"I meant Jesse". At this, he started laughing, "Jesse is a guy", he clarified, "It's the name we gave him from his initials J.C while back in college"."Oh!", I grinned sheepishly as I downed my first drink and ordered another.

Just as I was recovering from my mini episode of embarrassment, two men arrived at the table. Krish got up and hugged both of them and introduced me to Jesse and Mo. Jesse was a very calm looking guy. Dressed in a suit, it was clear from is accent that he was living abroad, most probably the US. Mo was a more of a sober looking guy. Tall with tanned skin, he sported a trimmed beard."Jesse here works out of the US," said Krish as he introduced them, "while Mo works in the middle east. We guys were inseperable back in college."

"And this here is Mr.Single-on-Friday-Night", he said grinning lightheartedly as he introduced me.

After the formal introductions were over, we all ordered a fresh round of drinks. Interestingly, Mo just ordered some lime soda. Seems like he wasn't much of a drinker.

Once the drinks arrived, Krish was complaining to the two guys, that they were late as usual. Mo spoke first, "I started pretty early Krish, but it was so difficult to get here. I got struck in the traffic due to some heavy protests by some Muslim dudes."

"You mean the Mohammed cartoon protests?", I asked as I finished my drink again and ordered another one.

"Yes the very same.", he said, "It the same issue back home too. I just have one thing to say tothese dudes...Come on guys, these are just cartoons. Frankly I don't see any problems with thecartoons. I saw them. I actually like those toons. Some tongue in cheek humour keeps everybody's spirits high. It's not as if they harmed anyone by publishing these cartoons. Other than that of course, they were also protesting against good ol' Prez Bush's policies too..."

"Don't even talk about that guy Mo", interjected Jesse. For the first time in the evening, the natural calmness he wore seemed to fade away. "I really hate that guy man. He is such a loser of a Born-Again Christian this guy is yaar...", Jesse continued, "You guys know what he said about the invasion of Iraq? Bush said... God told me, George! Go and stop the injustice in Iraq and by God I did it"."Yeah Right... Looks like God told Bush to go ahead and kill 200,000 people and free Iraq.", he fumed sarcastically, "Maybe he is freeing Iraq of Iraqis... Many of theseChristians make me sick man. They spread violence in the name of spreading love. I really hate their holier-than-thou-attitude. Just take look at Hindus. Now those guysare peace loving people "

"Hindus are such peace loving people!", mocked Krish, mimicking Jesse's voice. "Have you guys been following the news lately? Does Vododara. Gujrat. Violence, ring a bell? We will first bulldoze your very old Dargah. If you protest we will go ahead and burn an innocent guy who has nothing to do with your protests coz he is a Muslim too. You know, one should not burn these mobsters in revenge. That would be too easy a punishment. Instead they should be slowly cooked in an open tandoor."

He gulped in his drink for pause and started off again, "Do you wanna know how much more peace loving we are? We are so peace loving that we will opress people from our own religion in the name of caste. We have such a planned and structured form of racism in practice you see."

The atmosphere seemed charged with excitement now. I did not seem to exist as far as these guys were concerned. They were too engrossed in their arguments. This was when I noticed something strange.I could see that these guys were very different. I could not place my finger on it exactly but something in the back of my mind was sending me signals that I couldn't interpret.

Soon enough, a calm subsided over them. Mo the-sober-one interrupted them, "Hey Guys!This is not the reason why we came here. This reunion was supposed to be enjoyed right?Just like back in college."

"Ah College! Now that was a place, it must be ages since we had such fun guys", said Jesse, "College was real heaven man..."."Can't agree more with you Jesse-boy", said Krish cheerfully, "What say we go check out a discotheque and pick up a few girls just like the old days?"

"Wanna join us man? ", he offered, looking at me. Much as I would have liked to meet somegirls, the drinks were taking their toll. The last thing I wanted to do was puke on some girl. So I declined their offer.

Just as they bid farewell left, it hit me as to what I felt strange about them. There seemed to be a kind of distinct glow in them.

As they walked across the bar floor, I noticed something else...Was it me?Was it the drinks that I had?Was it the bar lighting?I could have sworn that they weren't walking. They seemed to be floating over the floor.

In the recent past, we have heard a lot of news about rapes in various places - Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkotta, Bangalore... More than half of the rape victims commit suicide either immediately or after few days, unable to bear the agony. One should admit that even few brave souls who chose to live after being raped were tortured mentally and physically with pricking words,

"You let him in your apartment, didn't you? Well, what did you expect?

"It was your fault too and you must accept your share of the blame."

I guess all these happen because too much of weightage is given to the word 'virginity' than what it deserves. Consider a girl who was raped forcibly. Is her fault by any means?! Why should she be punished mentally for something in which she had no control? It is also strange that 'virginity' is always considered more feminine than masculine. The society infact prevents the girl from filing a police complaint against the rapist. (You know how the society would treat a raped victim). The rapists use this as an advantage to commit more such acts.

I think, the mental attitude of each and every individual in the society should change. People should consider a rape as yet another accident and should not carry it beyond that. A raped victim should not be considered as an untouchable by the society. She is no different from other women just because is fucked once. Guys in Bangalore would have heard stories about girls having sex before marriages at their will and later getting married to a wealthy US groom. These girls live peacefully and happily. I don't defend them, but there should not be too much of tag attached to the virginity coz it should not matter for a guy whether his wife had sex before marriage or not, if she is loyal to him after the marriage.

The raped victims could also lead a happy life, if the society has a different perspective towards rape and virginity. What the society needs to give her is care and not aversion?!

"Machi look at her, look at that ravishing white churidhar...oh my...oh my...I'm going to propose today. I can't help falling in love." Pradeep was declaring to his team mates. They were heading to a resort. Team building activity. The entire division was there. Including the new Shwetha of IIIrd floor, in her mesmerizing white dress. He was wondering which team she had joined.

The team builders were in progress."Role play...." the compere was announcing."Two people will be randomly selected from the lots and they will have to take roles of..........LAILA MAJNU", she was at the top of her voice attempting to sound excited."OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOh" responded the crowd. At least some real fun, after the boring stick-the-paper, catch-the-ball games."From the boys, the Majnu is...", she was picking a random sheet from the pile."Pradeep...Ramanathan"There were excited shouts by his team mates."C'mon Pradeep....""Shwetha... Shwetha" His team mates started chanting."Oh shit" Pradeep was embarassed. He started walking to the middle.["Anyway I'll use this as a reason to talk with her. I'll start with an apology"], he brightened."....Pradeep's Laila is.....Shwetha Ravindran....Wow...some chemistry going on there folks" exclaimed the compere. The crowd went wild.["Bull shit is going on"] Pradeep was almost crying. This was Shwetha of I floor.["A Raven"], he was cursing his fortunes.Shwetha came and stood next to him cheerfully. She gave a love-bug-has-stung-me look and a double meaning smile, which made him uneasy.["Holy shit"]"Hi""Hi", he told with a forced smile and turned other way."Your time starts...NOW"He wondered why that lady was shouting so much for everything."Hi Laila. How are you?" he blabbered."Booo" shouted back the crowd. He was biting this nails and made sure his performance was the most unimpressive one. But the way shwetha smiled and her body language or something, drove him sick."Time up...."["Shit...Shit...SHIT"] He walked back, nodding his head. His team mates were waiting to pounce on him.

It was tea break. All the team events were over. After this, the division head would give his customary speech and they'll be back, for heaven's sake. Time was moving very slowly for Pradeep. He longed to get away from this stupid resort. He felt Shwetha was watching him all the time after that role play.["Is she still watching?"] He involuntarily looked towards her. She had also turned just then and there eyes met. Another double meaning smile.["Shit Shit Shit"] Pradeep slammed the table."What happened man?" his manager placed his hands on his shoulder."Eh..Well...nothing...the tea was too hot and....I burnt my tongue"."Pradeep is quiet abnormal after that role play. Wat say guys?" remarked the manager with a glee."Yes" "Waves" Everybody burst into laughter.["They laugh for everything the manager says. Spineless fools"] Pradeep was smiling helplessly.

Next day. Pradeep was trying to focus on work.["Oh, what a nightmare! At last everything ended up somehow. No more team events!"]"Hi"He lifted his head.["Shwetha? What are you doing here?"]"Hi""Would you accompany me for a coffee?" she was smiling.["Why don't you smile normally at me? Why is this girl so stupid?"]"Hello, stop dreaming", a mischievous smile again.["Oh my god"]"No... actually.... I already had my coffee." he blushed."Oh, is it so?"["Look at her tone. Look at her tone. Damn."]"Ah hem", the manager passed his cubicle creating that strange sound. He looked at Pradeep, winked and kept going.["Damn you dumbo."]"Hellooooo""Yea...Yea... I told you...coffee....May be some other time", words just slipped out of him.["Oh man, why did I say that? why did I say that?"]"Ok. I can also drink coffee alone.", she left, with a strange expression on her face.["What is that? ...'oodal'....damn you...Why is this happening to me!"]

He left early that day. He was lying down and cursing everything that was happening. Karthik, his room mate entered."Hey dude.. Heard lot of stories! oh man... how romantic!"["Ram is prompt in spreading these things. Damn.."] Pradeep was cursing his team mate."Look at my Majnu here, dreaming with his eyes open.""Oh come on da... It's a tragedy. Leave it." Pradeep tried to cut it short.But it didn't stop. Mahesh joined Karthik later and there were laughter all around."Will you guys please stop? I'm in real trouble man.....She behaves as if...as if we are lovers....she flirts...Damn her" he was grinding his teeth."I'm going to tell her, 'Stop flirting you stupid. I don't love you'""What if she proposes to you when you catch her alone?", that was Karthik with his glee."Please stop joking da""No man, I'm serious. What if she says, you may not love me but I'm dying for you" Karthik mimicked. He couldn't help his laughter."He's right." endorsed Mahesh."Try this da. Cook up some story. Tell her that you are in love with your cousin or someone. That'll put a full stop." Mahesh's unquestionable logic was in full form."uh....ok....may be I'll try that""Machi think twice before you do anything. Remember what thalaivar said, 'the girl who is after you is much better than the girl you go after.'" They exploded with laughter again.["@#**@ Karthik, I'll make you pay for this."]"Ok. Shall we go for dinner?"

Next day. Pradeep was restless. He thought she would come for coffee in the morning, but she didn't. In the afternoon, he decided to call her himself. He took the lift to first floor and searched for her cubicle. She was not there. He didn't know whom to ask. People started smiling and gossiping on seeing him there.["Holy shit"]He hurried back to the lift. The lift opened and she was inside it!"Looking for me?"["Oh don't smile like that. I get irritated and will thrash...."] Pradeep was getting psychic."Hello Sir. You day dream a lot."["What? You..."]"Actually they moved me to IIIrd floor from today. Sorry I didn't inform you.""That's ok", he was about to tell. But suddenly felt it will not be the right response. He tried to act smart."Well, no. I didn't come here looking for you. I came for the Xerox machine." he smiled triumphantly."Oh is it?" A double meaning smile. "I know what you came for, man" she was appearing to say."Took the xerox?""Yes....Yes"He suddenly realized, he carried no papers."Actually no. The machine was not working......and I left the forms in the machine itself."["Thanks to all crazy Mohan movies."]"There is no Xerox machine in this floor. It was also moved to IIIrd floor."["oh shit. this is not your day Pradeep, not your day."]"Okay. I came to call you for coffee. I keep my promises!" Pradeep decided to give up his Xerox story."Me too, came looking for you."["Oh. Why do you speak in a child's tone? Madam I'm not your MAJNU"]"You always look lost" a smile again.["Oh no....not as you think"]"Well...lets go."

He didn't speak anything after that. They sat on their table with coffee mugs. Both of them were silent. She was eagerly looking at him. He was cursing himself for not knowing where to start his story.["Jai Kicha!"],he said his prayers to the God of lies.He started, clearing his throat."Well, Shilpa....""What?" she smiled, appearing to say, "Oh come on man, I know you are hopelessly overacting.""Oh sorry...Shwetha" he blushed.["Don't overact Pradeep. put it straight, come on"]"Dreaming again!" she told with that strange tone."Actually I wanted to clarify you on something. My team mates shouted your name before the event, just to tease me. I have nothing like that in my mind. I was afraid if you mistook it."["C'mon Pradeep, good start, keep going."]"and I..I...I don't know""What?""No No. I actually got engaged last month, with my girl friend.""Oh" her face suddenly saddened and started showing contortions.["Oh Oh don't cry don't cry...."] he was praying.She recomposed herself."So, what is she doing?""Hmmm....she works in Bangalore.""Where in Bangalore?"["She asks empty questions. She wants to kill time. She feels like running away..Yes..There you go!"]Pradeep was relieved and happy.She tapped the table."Bangalore....oh...she, she works in Vidhan Soudha.""In Vidhan Soudha?"He noticed her face brightening.["Oh no no...She knows Bangalore. Shouldn't get caught"]"I meant she works near Vidhan Soudha. She works in a post office there." He was blabbering. A controlled blabber, as he felt."She still works there?". She was smiling, a different smile.["What is that question...."]"Of course.....of course, she plans to resign next month. Our marriage is 3 months away." Pradeep started congratulating himself.["Turning out to be better than Kicha..Should pat myself."]She started laughing and laughed and laughed...["Oh my god..Oh my god...Why is she laughing?....Sarcasm???"]"There....." she laughed again."There is no post office near Vidhan Soudha."["Goddamn you man. You shouldn't have got too creative. But Karthik once told there is a post office there?"]"They closed it a year back...and moved to another place. My brother works there. I know it very well." She continued laughing.["Uh oh...Okay...Okay, no more lies or tricks. Tell everything openly...is that clear? Tell clealy that you don't love her... Even if she proposes, handle it...You are not afraid of anything."]["Oh why did she stand up.."] She was still laughing."No...No...Hold on. Sit down. I wanted to talk.""Sorry dear..."["dear??? grrr.."]"I have a meeting in 5 mins. Should go now. Can't spend all my time with you!"She smiled with pity and bent towards him.He suddenly jerked back thinking she will kiss him.She whispered, "I should be a house wife for that."["What the hell...What the hell..."] Pradeep was almost crying.She had left and was walking towards the lift."Hey Hey...sh...wetha" he shouted."I've also seen 'Vaali'" She laughed from distance.["What? Oh no..."]"Wait a minute....When does the meeting end?...I want to talk to you.""Six. I should catch the shuttle then." She winked at him and got into the lift."Holy shit", he slammed the table.Suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder."What's happening man?" His manager again."uh...Nothing...Just had coffee. I'm leaving." He almost ran from the cafeteria, nodding his head.Suddenly Karthik's words, echoed in him.["Oh no...No...Never...Not this girl..."]

PS:==1. This is not an entry for continue-the-story competition. But since most people who read this didn't understand the 'director's touch', you may continue.2. For those who don't understand what "oodal" is, it is "feigned aversion coy", as per G.U.Pope :D.

A monk leaves at 8AM on day one from his monastery, at the feet of a tall mountain, and follows a trek to the summit, which he reaches at 8PM on the same day, after 12 hours spent walking, looking at the landscape, or sitting in prayer. On the following day, the monk leaves the summit at 8AM and follows the same trek down to reach his monastery at 8PM, again after 12 hours.

The question is: Is there at least a point along the trek where the monk has been at the same time of the day, on day one and on day two? Substantiate your answer.

In all possibility, this could be your question in your next interview.

Hmm....., the short story writing went well i suppose. Kart, Iday, Kriz - congrats and thanks for making it. Now, lets start another version of it - the one proposed by Iday originally. Let us write a really long story something in line of sindbad. I don't prefer random story development where anybody can drag from any point. This is to avoid concurrency problem. First let us search the interested people and develop the story in round-robin fashion. Story development could be of any propotion. If the responsible member fails to write for that week, then others have to continue. Let us discuss the topic, rules and volunteers in this thread and go on with the story writing from another post.

The book Freakonomics has been inspirational to many atleast in the usage of the word "incentive". It gained popularity because of tricky questions with never said before answers. in simple(r) words, he went out of the box. For our part let us also ask some freaky questions and try to answer them. I guess it would be interesting. Now, question arises as to what classifies to be a freaky question. simple. The question must be about a subject which we are coming across in our daily lives still never bothered to analyse it. The question should n't give answer straight out and should demand arguments.BTW, why the name FreakECE? its a tribute to Kicha the vampire lier who gave us the name techECE.o.k. Let me start with an average question which i don't know the answer. We see tata indica cars in large as national permit - government tourist vehicle. why is that so?

I came across this simple nice method to do a serial copy from one memory location to another. It is called Duff's device or Duff's loop. It uses the concept of switch-case fall-through in C. The below snippet copies the memory from "to" to "from" with lesser number of comparisons than on a conventional loop...

I wrote a code in which I used the two logics we discussed in the previous thread. I took a 'Evil' level puzzle from sify. My program was able to find out only few digits(shown in blue). We need to find out another logic to continue solving.

This is the term referring to the decrease in the currency value as a country w.r.t foreign Exchange or Gold. This started from the olden days when money itself was just pieces of gold or silver. When those rules devaluated their currency, they wud release newer coins of the same denomination, but the coins will be of lesser weight. The value of the rupee is defined as against the value of gold. Say x mg of gold is Rs.10. When the money gets devaluated, this x is decreased (which means that the value of gold increases). People buy dollars, when they expect the money to devaluated, and sell them after this - thus making profit out of this. The opposite of this is revaluation, where the money strengthens.

CC restricts the free movement of capital. Expanding global economy and liberalized financial systems of countries (such as complete currency convertibility) will expose the country to autonomous flow of funds. So CC says all this must be monitored and examined.

This is a fall in the real or apparent value of the currency of a nation. A classic example is the comparison of prices of goods or services. In raw terms, inflation is the drop in the purchasing power of money. Another example is when the govt releases money into the economy, without having the necessary reserves. So the 'x' we spoke abt above naturally decreases and the value of the money decreases.

Inflation is within one economy and devaluation is the result of comparison between 2 (or more economies)

This is the BIG game the govt and/or central bank plays to keep all the economic parameters under check and stabilize the economy. There are lot of parinvolved involed like inflation, exchange rate of currency, providing employment, maintaining interest rates, ForEx etc etc.

This is basically the budget and how the budget gets implemented. Things like taxation, issuance of bonds, treasury bills, borrowing money, tackling the fiscal deposit etc. Supposedly the govt also plays around with the value of the money and rises fiscal funds thru this. This is called seignorage.

Our RBI, responsible for the monetary policy of the country by maintaining the stability of the national currency economy, controlling loan interest rates, work with banks to enforce monetary plans, monitoring and controlling banking operations etc. Found that our RBI is an independent body - the working of which cannot be interfered by the central govt.

Wiki jus led me into a maze. Looks like i must read a lot more. It is interesting nevertheless!!! Will keep posting stuff on this message as and when i read up.

An interesting politacal career came to an end yesterday evening at 4.10 pm with the untimely death of Pramod Mahajan. People shall always be left guessing of what might have been if only...

Irrespective of what his (or my) political affiliations or political ideologies may have been one thing I admire about this guy is that he brought professionalism into election campaigning.

Now moving on to the Sports news in today's bulletin...Greg Chappell sees new hope for Indian team with Young Turks as the one shown in the below pic.

This is what Grag Chapell has to say about the young star M.S.Pradeep ;)"Talented players like Mr.Pradeep need to be nurtured instead of being made to stare into stupid TFT monitors and waste time writing code (and blogs). Just notice the excellent foot positioning and the perfect follow through of the bat and you will know what I mean. " :DRumour has it that the Australian government has decided to provide him with a green card (no questions asked) for the sole purpose of inducting him into the Australian Cricket Team...

Moving on to reality news now... actually I scored just two runs in the match, this was one of them. :)

The US Foreign Policy Magazine and US based fund-for-peace releases a list of the most viable countires in the world. India stands at a commendable 93 (eventh0uh some of the indicators are disturbing). A point to note here is that Pakistan is ranked as the 9th most vulnerable country in the world. It was 34th on the list last year and has had a major slump to decline to 9th.

The parameters are well thought out me thinks and also gives a major help to those trying to improve the state of the country (if someone is really bothered that is). If we keep speaking about the failure of the system, sitting in a country which scores a decent 6.7 on "Progressive Deterioration of Public Services" - i cannot even imagine the state of a country like Somalia (10 - but we know that already right) or North Korea (9.5!!!)

I read a statement in Business world recently. Though I don't recollect the exactly it was something like this: "There is an imbalance created in the global economy. The deficit of US economy is increasing. While Asian economies (especially China and India) are growing with surplus. To balance this, the pressure is on Asian countries to revalue their currencies and try to focus on their local markets."

I understand the imbalance, though vaguely. But I'm not getting the idea of why we should revalue? Can somebody dissect this statement and explain?

I really don't have time for this, so I am going to keep this real short.

Pros1. Refreshing storyline. A welcome change from the usual fare.2. The director does a good job in showing that no one is all good and no one is all bad...3. Good performance by Malavika, but then we all love bad girls don't we ;)

Cons1. The first half is a real drag.2. The director has taken real pains to make sure that all the songs (which are no good by the way) are placed at exactly inappropriate places so as to screw the feel of the movie. Sad to see that directors in Tamil still need to rely on songs inspite of a good story.

VerdictUdhayam. First Class. Take a huge bag of popcorn though to help you through the first half of the movie

When I was image-googling for this post on my blog, to find a nice pic of a flag with the sickle et al, I found this pic thru Wiki.

This is a very important pic in the history of mankind. The soldier seen is a Russian. The flag is that of the Soviet Union. He is standing on top of the Reichstag, flying the flag after the German nation fell. This picture signals the beginning of the end of the World War II.

This is one of World War II's iconic images. This is the photo of the Hammer and Sickle being flown over the Reichstag building as Berlin falls to the Red Army.